Group: CiteULike-discussion - Forum Thread

Topic: Bug reports

[CLOSED] unable to import ris file with keys that already exist in CUL library

Hi,

I tried to import references into CUL from a RIS file. However, CUL says

"Record foo (key=bar): article with that key already exists in your library"

for all references in the RIS file.

Is there a way to tell CUL to delete or replace the keys from the RIS file with new ones?

(Maybe this is actually more of a feature request than a bug report.)

Thanks!

Posted by henningninneh on 2009-10-28 13:39:33.

7 replies. Login or join this group to post to this thread.

What did you fill in in the "What about Duplicates?" section at the bottom of the import page?

Posted by thegoose on 2009-10-28 13:41:43.

I left it unchecked, because there where no duplicates that I wanted to update. On second thoughts, the RIS file consisted only of duplicates, since the keys were already used in the CUL library. I have now checked the "updating" box and the "match CiteUlike Article ID" button and it worked.

Thanks again!

Posted by henningninneh on 2009-10-28 13:46:47.

um, no. actually it didn't work out. in fact, several fields of the newly imported references, including the tags, are messed up completely. thank god it's been only a couple of references.

Posted by henningninneh on 2009-10-28 13:55:28.

Can you give an example of where it went wrong? If you have the relevant before/after RIS records, then that would be a real help.

Posted by cjhall on 2009-10-28 14:03:32.

sorry, I have now deleted the corrupted records from the CUL library (they were tagged with the current date). Here's the ris file that I tried to import: http://rapidshare.com/files/299098353/oktober.ris.html

My impression is that the imported references where somehow melted with existing references in the CUL library.

I have now tried it a second time and it seemed to work. I think this is because, since I have delted the references that got corrupted during the first import, there were no duplicate keys at the time of the second import.

best h

Posted by henningninneh on 2009-10-28 14:23:19.

That description sounds exactly right -- if the keys match, the records are updated (merged). There is no "replace, don't merge" option [at the moment].

Posted by cjhall on 2009-10-28 14:55:49.

I see. In addition, there is also no "add (with new key), don't replace, don't merge" option. This is what I wanted to do in the first place. I thought "match CiteUlike Article ID" might be a workaround to achieve just that, since the references in the ris file had no such ID. Turns out it was no workaround but a bad idea.

Anyway, it would be nice to see a "replace" and a "add/append with new key" option in the future.

Best h

Posted by henningninneh on 2009-10-29 09:25:29.